Small Party Assisted Rescue (SPAR) class in Nevada

I teach cave rescue courses for the National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC), and one of my favorites is the Small Party Assisted Rescue class. The idea behind this class is that if someone in your caving group gets hurt or sick on the cave trip and doesn't need a litter carry out, your group gets the person out with the gear they have.

The class is often structured for three or four days. I've helped teach them in many states and even Canada over the past few years. Recently we held one in Baker, Nevada. After the morning in the classroom, we headed to our rope gym. Students were split up into small groups and rotated to several stations.

Traveling haul is a fantastic small party rescue technique, because you don't need any extra rope. With two small pulleys (you could use carabiners, but lose a lot of efficiency), you make a 2:1 haul system that moves up the rope. When you put the redirected rope into your Croll and sit down, you have great pulling force. Plus the patient can help (if not too injured).

Here's Dr. Tom waiting to get lifted up and over the table at the releasable redirect station. This is a fun technique that allows you to move someone not only vertically, but also a bit horizontally.

Tom was helping rig, but the main reason I had to include this photo is how often do you get to do ropework with a nearby disco ball??

The balcony provided a great place to practice convert to lower. The idea is that a patient (or a couple jugs of foam) are stuck on rope, and the rope is hard tied at the top. With some extra rope or webbing, how can you lower them quickly to the bottom? (Hint: Munter hitches are a great tool here)

Another station is the diminishing loop counterweight, where a rope goes through a pulley, and the rescuer is on one side and the patient on the other, and they are tethered together. As the rescuer climbs, the patient also goes up. You just have to figure out what to do when you get to the pulley! (That comes in day 2.)

The infamous Voodoo, a way to tension the rope. We used it for the guided rappel.

All this work made us hungry! A catered dinner from Salt & Sucre really hit the spot. Yum!

Then it was back to work with demonstrations and practice time.

Day 2 was all about the cliffs. I was so busy with teaching I hardly got any photos. Here's a multi-pitch way up the cliffs. Students learned how to rappel a patient through rebelays, as well as several other rescue techniques.

After another delicious catered dinner, it was time for a little whiteboard exercise of how to choose which method to use under which circumstances.

The final day was scenario day, where students go caving with instructors in small groups. Somehow an instructor in each group manages to have a problem, which must be solved. They all did great!

Thank you to all the instructors who came and shared their knowledge and to all the students willing to take time to learn something that may help them out some day.

Fantastic 2019 Nevada SPAR class

If you're interested in cave rescue, you can see upcoming classes at the NCRC website.

Hint: there's another cave rescue class (not as technical) coming up in Baker, NV soon, but only has a few spots left!

Bloomington Cave, Utah

Back in March, our friends Andy and Bonnie asked if I could help reconnoiter Bloomington Cave in southern Utah with them for an upcoming cave rescue class. My calendar was clear, as long as I could bring the kids. That was fine with them, so we agreed on a meeting time. But the night before, it snowed! Snow in St. George isn't very common, and it was so beautiful I just had to stop and take a few photos!

We were worried about the road, but fortunately everything was frozen and travel was easy. I stopped again to snap a photo of this cool cave sign.

Bloomington Cave is managed by the BLM. They have a nice website page for the cave. It tells you how to get a permit, how to get to the cave, and maps of the cave.

Near the parking area is a covered kiosk with some really good caving info. One side shows what you should have to go into the cave, like a helmet, lights, kneepads, and depending on where you want to go, rappelling and climbing gear.

Another side shows some of the creatures that call Bloomington Cave their home.

It might surprise some people how many different cave dwellers are in the cave.

 

On the fourth side is a good map of the cave. Both it and the Cave Routes map on the website show different color routes through the cave. This is extremely helpful for navigating the 1.4-mile long tectonic cave, which is a bit mazy.

Properly equipped, we headed down to the south entrance.

We opened the gate with the code we had gotten. The cave gate is quite ingenious, as it can be opened from the inside without any code, so people can get out anytime. But to get in, you need the code, and they change it frequently.

The kids wanted to lead the way, and since the trail was marked with flagging, we let them.

Before long we came to the cave register, and Desert Girl and Bonnie checked it out.

I had been to Bloomington Cave over 15 years ago, and the thing I remembered most was how vertical it was. The majority of the cave is at a 60 degree angle. We went down to the Big Room, using the ropes we had brought with to assist us. We did a combination of rappelling and using the ropes as handlines. (I would recommend coming prepared to rappel, it makes it safer.) We were assessing the cave for where we could do some cave rescue practice in about a month under a special permit. We made our way around a loop and back to the cave register. 

Then we tried another route. (Be sure to check out the Routes page on the BLM website, which has a nice description of the different flagged routes.) We decided to give the green route a try, which is the shortest entrance-to-entrance route. It includes a squeezy part and some crawling. We even found some soda straws and flowstone.

After a break for lunch, we went back in the North Entrance and followed the pink route. It was a lot of fun seeing some of the cave, and their marked routes is a great idea. This is not really a beginner cave, it has some pretty tough sections.

A few weeks later I drove out to Gunlock State Park to help instruct at the Small Party Assisted Rescue (SPAR) class for the National Cave Rescue Commission. I had never been there before, and was quickly impressed with the beauty!

The storm clouds did mean cold weather. Our classroom was in an unheated shed, and we did rope work outside. Plus we camped. That meant the cave was our warm place, and fortunately we spent two full days in it.

We rented this old hay barn to do vertical practice. Although I've taught this class a bunch of times (12 now, I think!), I always learn something new. This time it was Diminishing Loop with a knot pass (in case you didn't have a rope that was double the length of the drop). We discussed a good knot to use to tie two ropes together to make crossing the knot easy and then put it to the test. It worked very smoothly.

And then we had some pickoff demos and time to practice. These are so easy to mess up, so it's critical to practice frequently if you think you might ever need to use one.

I didn't manage to take any more photos at Bloomington Cave for the SPAR practices because I was pretty busy teaching, but the cave worked well. My favorite station was the pass a patient through two rebelays to get them down the 100-foot drop in the Big Room. Then we used a traveling haul to get the patient up through two rebelays. Since the drops weren't totally vertical, just steep angle, it made it a pretty good training area. And it was my first time having the opportunity to use two rebelays for teaching, it adds a little complexity.

One last photo: due to high water, the waterfalls at Gunlock State Park were running and were very pretty! If you're headed to Bloomington Cave, they're worth a detour.

Sonoran Desert

 I haven't spent much time in the Sonoran Desert, so when I had an opportunity to visit recently, I was very excited. The Sonoran Desert is home to the iconic saguaro cactus and over 2,000 species of plants.

The Sonoran Desert includes the state of Sonora in Mexico plus part of Baja California, as well as a tiny bit of southern California and a fair portion of southern Arizona.

Tucson, Arizona is a great place to see saguaro cacti. My friend Sarah asked if I would help teach a cave rescue class one evening while I was there, and I happily agreed. My eyes bugged out as we approached the training facility: the hillsides were covered with saguaro.

The class went well.

It was for the Southern Arizona Rescue Association. I like that they have saguaro on their logo. And I just had to snap a photo with the juxtaposition of a skeleton and "save lives" in the same frame.

I woke up early my last day, and before I went to the airport, I went to Saguaro National Park. They have a west unit and an east unit. I entered the east unit at opening time, 7 am.

I was promptly wowed by the expanse of beautiful flowers, tall cacti, and shrubby trees.

 

I quickly learned that there used to be a lot more cacti in this area, but due to prolonged freezing temperatures many years ago, the cactus forest had shrunk. This particular cacti looked a little worse for the wear.

There's so much I have to learn about saguaro biology!

For this trip, my goal was just to enjoy the company of saguaros and the surrounding vegetation. A network of trails makes it easy to do that.

I learned that many saguaro grow next to nurse trees, which protect them from wind and heat and help them get extra nutrients. Palo verde is one of the most common trees.

Saguaro cacti aren't the only cacti around here. Here is a barrel cactus, possibly a fishhook one. At least the spines resemble fish hooks!

The mixture of prickly pear, cholla, and saguaro of various shapes made me smile.

This saguaro had a bunch of holes in it, which birds will use for nesting. If you don't have tall trees, you learn to adapt!

This is a crested saguaro. Not many of them take this form, but it sure is eye-catching.

I didn't have time to hike far, but I went a short way on several trails just to get a taste of them. On this rocky trail I found ocotillo blooming, a different kind of cholla (there are several kinds in the park), and a carpet of yellow wildflowers.

I took so many photos! I'm just sharing the best here, as a teaser to go explore more. I couldn't stay long, and my time in the park was over long before I wanted it to be.

 

This sign was in the visitor center, and I found it really cool. These saguaro are long-living!

I'd like to make Tucson a family destination, there is just so much to see and do in the nearby area, including Saguaro National Park, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Pima Air and Space Museum, Kartchner Caverns, and much more. Have you been to this area? Do you have any suggestions?

Cave Rescue Training in Texas

 In late February I jumped on an airplane and headed south to Texas for a week of teaching National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC) training.

But before I started, I had half a day to spend with my friend Cassi. We headed over to the state capitol for a tour.

It was cool to hear about all the symbolism behind the shields. And guess which state capitol in the U.S. is the largest? Everything is biggest in Texas, right? 

The next day I slept in (oh, what a treat!), went for a run, and then Cassi dropped me off with a friend who took me up to Barefoot Lodge. We had our instructor's meeting, and then I gathered all the Small Party Assisted Rescue (SPAR) instructors so we could go over our class. We checked in students that evening.

The next morning we began with the whole group, Levels 1, 2, and SPAR under the watchful eyes of dead animals.

Our SPAR classroom is outside, and fortunately the weather cooperated. In fact, it was downright balmy early in the week, even reaching 80 degrees! Here's Kelby talking about pre-planning and decision making. (Hint: some pre-planning can go a long way. And having extra gear in your vehicle means that your gear cache is close by if something goes wrong.)

 

 Later DJ did an excellent talk about Frog system optimization. As Americans, we tend to want to set up our gear our way. But the more I (and several other instructors) tweak our systems, the more they tend to look like what the Europeans use. Extra tips here: keep everything to the left of the Croll, oval carabiners are awesome (they are compatible with all gear), using a carabiner to attach to your upper ascender gives you a lot more flexibility.

 

Carrey gave a talk about SPAR psychology. This talk was demo'ed during the weeklong SPAR in the summer. I liked it so much I wanted to have it included in our three-day class, and Carrey hit it out of the ballpark. I don't mind sharing some of it, because I think sharing things that makes cavers safer is good to do. You can avoid many accidents if you watch out for yourself and your team if they're having any of these symptoms that fit in the acronym HALTY: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, or hYpothermic. Best treatment: talking, a hug, and food. Aw, now we all want to go caving together. :)

If an accident does happen, we need to know some basic medical. Andy covered that, with the caveat that the best thing to do is get some wilderness first aid/first responder training.

Next it's time for some haul system/mechanical advantage review/overview. It's good to know your 1:1, 2:1, and 3:1 systems with progress capture.

Then we had afternoon and evening stations, and I was so busy I didn't get photos of any of those. 
Day 2 we headed to some awesome cliffs in Colorado Bend State Park. We had four stations next to each other, so traveling time between them was minimal. That meant we had 1.5 hours at each station, a luxury to have so much time. One of the stations was a Convert to Lower station with Tommy. That basically means if you come to a rope with someone stuck on it, how can you lower them quickly?

Another station was climbing and rappelling counterweights. You learn quickly that having some high help (anchor off the ground) makes a huge difference. Our other two stations were crack and crevice and stacked counterweights. Then we did some rappelling with a patient through a rebelay and traveling haul through a rebelay. After dinner we were back at our classroom for some more demos and practice time. These days are long, but the great weather made it easy!

The next day was scenario day, with four students and two instructors heading into a cave. The instructors tended to have a lot of problems caving that day!

 Even though I've taught this class a lot of times, I always learn something new. This time around I was working on perfecting my Portuguese bowline, helped by peanut butter and jelly.

After our three-day SPAR had ended, I was planning on jumping in with Level 2 and helping there. But we had a surplus of instructors, and I asked DJ, the lead for the event, what he thought about teaching some SPAR skills to instructors. He said yes, and that was how MicroSPAR was born. I spent the next two days giving a one-day version to instructors. We started with about half an hour lecture, half an hour of Frog System optimization, an hour+ of convert to lower and an hour+ of traveling haul. It was great to repeat some of these things over and over and see the tweaks to make them even better. 

In the afternoon we went out to a cave and practiced various rescue techniques like traveling hauls and diminishing loop, climbing, and rappelling counterweight systems and compared them all. MicroSPAR was a blast, I hope to teach it again. This version was aimed at instructors and specialists, all who had been through at least Level 3. Some had taken SPAR before, others were new to it.

The next day I took the instructor written test. We have to take it every so often to stay current as an NCRC instructor. (I passed.) Then I helped out with the mock walkthrough, which is basically a smaller version of the mock rescue with several repeats so that students can learn how a cave rescue is launched and how the Incident Command System works. For one of the evolutions, I volunteered to be a patient in the SKED, a burrito-type rescue litter, to go out a tiny entrance. My nose almost touched, but not quite. The students got me out successfully, and I reminded them not to stop in the really tight spots, just keep moving steadily and slowly. (Yes, I can get claustrophobic, especially when I'm tied up in a litter and the cave wall is right in front of my face. How do I deal with it? Close my eyes and pretend I'm somewhere else.)

With a recent reminder of how much I don't like to be in the litter, when the mock scenario was presented that night, I did not volunteer to be a patient, but rather an "angel" for my friend Les. We went into a cave we had never been in before, so we weren't sure how the rescue would go. The temperatures had plummeted into the 20s at night, so we were thinking that being in a 65-degree cave would be nice and cozy. It turned out we were under a skylight, and it started snowing on us in the cave! Time to go a little deeper!

Here's Les waiting to be rescued. He even brought his own lantern.

Eventually he was packaged up and they started moving him towards the entrance. 

Here's one of the tight spots he went through. It wasn't even the tightest! They eventually got him out, although with some modifications to the original plan.

You learn something from every mock rescue and training. I'm very thankful I could be part of the Texas training. Thanks to DJ for putting on another successful training and inviting me to come be part of it. Thanks to all the students who choose to attend--you're the reason we can have the trainings. Thanks to all the other instructors, it's always inspiring to be with you. And thanks so much to Megan and the food crew--the amazing food is a huge part of why I came back!